


Synchronicity

by Democles



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bokuto and Kuroo are housemates, College AU, Coming of Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Psychology Student!Suga, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Ukai has his store, controversial boy next door AU, emphasis here is mostly placed on the word 'slow', law student!akaashi, they'll get there eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 09:48:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26970004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Democles/pseuds/Democles
Summary: ''At your age, the passage of time is ever so slow. Still, it shouldn't stop altogether.''
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Kudos: 4





	Synchronicity

The bus window rattled against his head. Along the steep hill the bus was climbing down, the streetlights were blurring.

These days, he wished for a car more than ever. Not quite a long ride it was to the university –only a bus and a few (eight, to be exact) steps on the subway; but it was a tiring one. These days, reminding himself why he does this only meant reminding himself of _her_ , of how he lost that little moment of putting his chin on top of her head and making her emotional over _how much my son has grown up_ \- that two words, _my son_ , he misses hearing more than anything else.

He remembered himself standing there, against his father, telling him that he absolutely refuses every single option consisting of selling the house which now he resents coming home to. Her house, the house that was alive and warm and welcoming as long as she existed in it, was one of the few things that she had left behind; along with her clothes -though most of them had been handed over to the people in need- and the food she made beforehand and put in the freezer. (He could not bear to throw them into the trash but he also could not bear to eat them. They were still in the freezer, three long years after.)

It wasn’t the education he would get, as if it mattered to him anymore. A burnout, he was to himself. But it was meant this way.

He had told his father that even if father did sell the house he wouldn’t be able to afford to buy a new one anyway. That Keiji won’t be a burden, he was going to a public university, therefore father did not have to pay for the tuition fees and that Keiji would not take a single yen from him, that he would cover his living expenses on his own. Only for this house (her memory, in this house) to exist, he also told his father he would help him with the rest of the family’s expenses. (He did not have a clue about earning money back then). And with that higher salary his father was talking about, he could go and buy any house he pleases.

He had told him so solemnly, his eyes had been ablaze though there hadn’t been a sign of tears. He had blamed his father. That must have shown in his eyes. _Coward_ , his eyes must have told father. _You are a coward. Coward for running away_.

Coward for leaving her alone. _Coward, you left everything!_

But the years that had passed left Keiji wondering… If leaving was the hard choice. If he was the one who didn’t have the strength to do so. The look in his father’s eyes was unexpectedly understanding, that hurt Keiji more. Father hadn’t said anything. Three weeks later they were gone. He started working late hours in a local market by then. ‘ _’We’re in the summerhouse with grandma!’’_ wrote one of his baby sisters. There were more than three hundred kilometers between him and the summerhouse in Osaka. ‘ _’Daddy’s saying we may have to stay a little bit more.’’_

‘A little bit more’ became months without Keiji knowing. Father’s new job also was in Osaka, when his step up as police captain became official, he also transferred the rest of Keiji’s siblings to the schools near his own mother’s house. They were staying there for the time being, till he ‘got over’ his wife’s death (as it was a phase) and settle to a new city from scratch. ‘’It was hard for him,’’ people were saying (and Keiji’s sisters were sometimes parroting to Keiji). ‘’Father of five, now a widow. I heard his oldest son separated himself from family…’’

‘’Such a tragedy! They are never talking about how it happened though. I wonder… ’’

‘’His children are also very young. How will he manage all alone?’’

Keiji remembered being baffled by what they said; they said, ‘ _alone’_. Why would they think his father is alone? _He still has his own mother._ His father was never alone like Keiji was. Keiji was… He was alone in every way. His priorities had been irreversibly changed on that day three years ago.

Life did that to people.

*

Another hill curved to the left, on his right city laid, looking like a black ocean swarmed with countless lanterns from where he was. His stop was just where the hill curved, under an elm tree.

There were three other people on the bus along with Keiji. An old lady, probably coming from grocery shopping, she had a little boy around the age of ten with her. The other one was a middle-aged man who was wearing a suit; he probably was an office worker, coming from work. Then, Keiji. But he hadn’t sat down. He had chosen to lean against the iron handle attached below the window in the middle. The kid hadn’t stopped talking for the thirty minutes Keiji had seen him, and he was still talking the old lady’s ear off while Keiji was getting off the bus. When the bus doors closed behind him it felt like it cut all the noise in the world. There was no one besides Keiji on the street. An early night- it wasn’t unusual in this neighborhood. The average age was probably over fifty, he knew aunts here who witnessed his mother’s birth.

There was an iron staircase leading to the street below. He headed for that, the noise coming from every stair he stepped on echoed in the space between the two buildings on his right and left. His house was on the first floor of the building on the left, there was also a garden which was no bigger than five square meters attached to his flat. Perks of staying on the first floor, even though his garden’s view was the retaining wall of the street above.

Before he went through the entrance door, he looked up to the sky for the last time. A second later, clouds went in front of the moon. The sky was rumbling, in no time, rain would start here too. So, no laundry for today. _Maybe I could waste more time trying to sleep_ , he thought to himself while opening the front door. He had no preference over the weather, but he had a certain dislike for rainy ones. When the rain came, it felt like colors drained from earth. Monochrome. It made his heart heavier, he hated it.

He closed the curtains first, then he switched the light on. He repeated what he did every other night: changed his clothes, took a shower, turned the TV on for background noise, opened the refrigerator from habit, closed it, sat down on the sofa, checked his phone, got up, sat down on the kitchen table. Checked his phone again, then he went for his bag, thinking that maybe he could do some public law practices. Takeyuki-sensei was unpredictable, said so himself, and added that he intended for a quiz, its date could be tomorrow or ten days from now on. Keiji liked to be prepared (preferably for everything). And, well, he had nothing else to do.

The rain didn’t start for an hour. He was at the second practice when he heard the pitter-patter on the window. Looking at the closed curtains, he thought how his mother complained about the raindrop stains on the window. What an odd thing to remember, when he didn’t even remember when the last time he looked outside from the windows was. Suddenly, he didn’t want to study for the quiz anymore. Didn’t want to sit at the table. The chair creaked from the speed he got up from the table, he paused for a second, then went for the garden. The backdoor was a ceiling-high window with an iron door attached behind, he opened the window first, then the door with the key he left on the lock.

There was no need to switch the lights for the streetlights above shone just enough to see what was in front of him. Before her death, his mother had maybe four-five house plants, she liked to put them on a two-step stair made from wood on the right end of the backdoor. After her death, while trying to take care of what’s left from her, Keiji realized he actually liked plants; he liked seeing them, liked taking care of them. With time passing by, starting with tiny cacti, the garden became full of plants, little trees, it was beautiful. Also, it shielded the garden from prying eyes, so that was another bonus. Closing the door behind himself, Keiji sat down just before the door. It was still raining, and here, shielded from the building, it was the only dry place to sit. (Well, actually, the only place to sit was the ground itself since all of the chairs became shelves to put plants on at some point. No one else came to the house but Keiji, so it hadn’t been a problem so far). 

That’s when he heard the yelling. His head snapped to his left but streetlights weren’t enough to see what was going on beyond the stairs. From the sound of the voices, they clearly belonged to two men. Hearing a fight here, it wasn’t unusual. Keiji lost count on how many times his father ran to intervene commotion that happened next door. A stray rock or two broke their apartment’s windows a few times. His mother also went to comfort Kyoutani-san when his father went to take care of the situation; when Keiji remembered Kyoutani-san, he almost always pictured her crying face in his mind— he saw it too many times to associate anything else with her. The only reason Kyoutani-san’s son also didn’t attack his father was that he was afraid of the fact that Keiji’s father was a cop. Police cars visited regularly, but even though Kyotani-san called for police, she never actually let them take her son. Even when they took him, she always insisted that she wasn’t making a complaint, so that they would release him.

But the commotion now wasn’t from next door, it came from the building on the other side of the stairs. Even though hearing a commotion wasn’t unusual, it was unusual when it wasn’t at Kyotani-san’s home; it showed in the way Keiji heard the windows above were opening. People were also curious, it seemed.

Keiji could only make out a few words:

‘’…we only… left, what would…’’

‘’…I said to you, it wasn’t—‘’

‘’…now people are…’’

Their voices had gotten louder, but words weren’t more decipherable than before. In the end, another yelling from Keiji’s building was what made them shut up. Keiji had flinched when he heard _let’s see if you can talk again when I come down there_ from the fourth floor. He could recognize that voice everywhere, it was the owner of the store three blocks away. He knew that it wasn’t an empty threat. The people fighting must have some sense in them to recognize a threat when they hear one, for their voice had quieted down pretty quickly after that. Keiji smiled to himself when he heard one window closing way after others did.

Only when he felt the vibration of his phone shutting down, he realized he didn’t know how long he was sitting there on the concrete ground of his doorstep. He stood up with an ache in his back, and rolled his shoulders after closing the backdoor behind him. Next door had been quiet for some months now. Over a year ago, after her troubled son left the city to do god knows what, Keiji was hearing Kyotani-san’s sobs almost every night, but now it was as if ghosts were living there instead of her and her youngest. Her youngest has never been a talker, but Kyotani-san’s silence sometimes made Keiji wonder if something worse was going on with them.

He didn’t want to see the look in her eyes when she looked at him, so he never tried to engage a talk with her. And for the fact that he knew that sometimes it was better not knowing.

Clock on the wall was showing one AM, he didn’t took his eyes from it while drinking water. He put his phone at the kitchen table along with the glass when he finished, then went to bed. He hadn’t bothered to look for his charger since there was no work nor lectures tomorrow and hoping to fall asleep soon enough, he closed his eyes. Sleep had never came easily to him before but in the last few years, it had become a form of torture.

This night, it seemed, wasn’t an exception.

He had given up trying to fall asleep in four hours, and at six AM, he was now at the kitchen table, scowling his eyes at the screen of his computer. When the screen got darker just enough, he could see his pale reflection scowling right back at him. The coffee he made was abandoned on the sink and it became ice-cold long before Keiji remembered he made coffee. Then he decided to wait for Sakanoshita Store to open because his fridge was empty except for one box of yogurt and two eggs along with two kilograms of rice he decided to keep there because he had space and he knew from experience that humid weather and rice don’t mix together well. (He didn’t want to see butterflies flying from the bag when he opened it ever, ever again.)

When he saw from the corner of his eyes that it was past seven AM, he decided to abandon the essay he was working on. The store was probably open now. He was already using his old sweatpants as pajamas— they were probably considered okay to wear outside. He threw a hoodie on and grabbed his keys from the table in the living room. There were still three days to get his paycheck so credit card, it was. Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, he wore his slippers and closed the front door behind him.

The ground was still wet from the rain last night, his slippers were making a squelching noise when he walked. _I should have worn my glasses_ , he thought while squinting at the sky. There was no sun to be seen although the sky was way brighter than it should be. While looking at the sky, and being annoyed with it, he completely missed the TV stand… being there… just past the iron staircase… on the street. If not for the ‘’Watch out!’’ came from his right, he probably would have collided with it.

‘’Good morning!’’ yelled the same voice, footsteps were coming closer to where Keiji was standing.

‘’What…’’ Keiji asked to himself quietly. He was still squinting. A man was jogging towards him— the one that talked to him. He looked old at the first glance (Keiji knew his eyesight wasn’t good, though the man’s grey/black hair could be in the blame too) but when he came closer, he realized he was probably around his age. He was wearing cargo shorts, a blue t-shirt stained with paint, also he was stepping over the heel of his worn out sneakers; and he was looking at Keiji with a smile Keiji could not understand.

When the man leaned over the TV stand and looked at Keiji with his hazel (yellow?) eyes wide open, Keiji took a step back.

‘’Good morning,’’ repeated the man with a cheerful tone. He didn’t seem to mind Keiji’s guarded stance.

_Does he want something from me?_ Keiji slowly blinked his eyes. ‘’Good morning?’’

‘’Are you our neighbor?’’

_Neighbor?_ ‘’I don’t know, where are you living?’’

The man eagerly pointed his hand to the building on the left of the iron staircase. Only then Keiji could notice the furniture scattered around the tiny (and empty) ornamental pool at the front garden of the building. The first floor’s doors were wide open. _Oh_. ‘’Did Kazekawa-san move out?’’

‘’Hmmm…’’ The man stared at the first floor for a second, thinking. ‘’Are you talking about the owner of the house? Or was there somebody else living in it? I don’t know, I think they moved out last week. He said something along the lines of ‘going back to his hometown’.’’

‘’Is that so?’’

‘’Yes.’’ The man nodded his head with a speed that made Keiji sick. Then he said, ‘’We were so lucky! Do you know how much rent they want for flats one-tenth the size of this one? Also, it has two entryways- I think that’s the best part of it. If you ever need to escape, you have more than one way out. One would never feel trapped here, don’t you think?’’

_When you think about it_ … Scowling slightly, Keiji said, ‘’You are right.’’ The man’s face lit up- ‘’But thieves also have more than one way in, don’t they?’’ –only to fall right after:

Crestfallen, he said, ‘’Right…’’ Then he stopped for a second. ‘’Then it’s good that I have a housemate,’’ he dropped the subject. ‘’Where do you live? Are you our neighbor?’’

Keiji pointed to the right side of the stairs.

‘’No way! You _really_ are our neighbor!’’ The man took Keiji’s right hand with both of his hands and shook it. Keiji felt like his hand was crushing between the man’s hands: his palms were wide and fingertips were calloused. The man’s face had been lit up with a joy that is so sincere, Keiji couldn’t help, his lips curled up even though he could not make sense of why- _Why?_ The man kept talking, ‘’It’s nice to meet you… Ah, sorry. I think I forgot.’’ He was now sheepish.

Keiji could not comprehend what he was talking about for a second. ‘’…My name?’’ he offered. ‘’I didn’t tell you. Akaashi Keiji.’’

He suddenly let go of Keiji’s hand only to slap his palm over his forehead. ‘’Did I forget to introduce myself completely? I’m an idiot!’’

Before Keiji could respond, another voice came from the open door: ‘’Yes you are!’’

‘’Shut up Kuroo!’’ the man yelled back.

‘’I’ll only shut up when you bring back the fucking stove!’’

‘’I _told_ you already, the guy in the trucking company took it! I can’t bring it back!’’

‘’Then fucking call them!’’

_Ah_. The voices… Keiji’s eyes widened. _They were the ones fighting yesterday, weren’t they?_ Keiji couldn't help but wonder if the fight from the night before was also about this particular stove.

‘’To say what? _You stole our stove?_ ’’

‘’No, to tell them the weather predictions for the next week. We don’t want them to catch a cold.’’ A tall guy with black hair – _Kuroo, as the man called him_ — appeared in the doorway. His eyes turned into slits when he looked at the man Keiji was talking to. ‘’Bring. Back. _The. Fucking. Stove_.’’ Without waiting for a response, he went inside.

‘’He always wants to have the last word,’’ the man muttered to himself. He clearly was very annoyed, and seemed to forget Keiji was even there. Keiji started fiddling wIth his fingers; surely, this was his cue to leave:

‘’Nice to meet you as well,’’ he said, bowing to the man slightly. The man looked surprised at that. _He must have really forgotten_ , Keiji thought. ‘’I’ll be on my way now.’’

‘’Wait—‘’ the man cried when Keiji started walking, Keiji reluctantly stopped and turned around to face him. ‘’I didn’t tell you my name, did I? You didn’t meet me yet!’’

Keiji made a hand gesture as if he was saying ‘ _go on_ ’.

‘’Bokuto Koutarou!’’ The man bowed nearly ninety degrees. ‘’When we get a stove, please come here to visit! I’m sorry we do not have food at home now.’’

Keiji nearly smiled at that, it sounded… heartfelt. ‘’Thank you.’’ He slightly bowed again. ‘’See you around, Bokuto-san.’’

‘’See you Akaashi!’’

With a little smile that finally broke through his façade, Keiji turned around to continue his walk to the store. His steps were a little faster than usual, similar to a rhythm of a jog, but it was hard to tell if the sudden jog was the reason behind his rising heartbeat or if his rising heartbeat was what made him speed up.


End file.
